If You Like Stephen King ...

updated 5/09

Something Wicked This Way Comes  by Ray Bradbury
A carnival comes to a small Midwestern town in the dead of night, as Halloween approaches. But this is no ordinary carnival; Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, and will destroy the life of everyone who enters this strange and sinister show. Jim and Will are two friends – one adventurous and one reserved – on the cusp of becoming men, who must try to stop Mr. Dark and Mr. Cooger from luring everyone to succumb to the call of promised dreams and recaptured youth.  Also try The October Country. 

Treasure Box by Orson Scott Card
Enigmatic recluse millionaire Quentin Fears was scarred as a child and is unable to cope with the world and its citizens. Now he has experienced the extraordinarily unexpected: love at first sight. But a whirlwind courtship and marriage to Madeleine -- beautiful, witty, and equally ill-at-ease with reality -- is bringing Quentin something other than the bliss he anticipated, now he must meet his new wife's family. A bizarre, dysfunctional collection of extreme characters, they are guarding a secret both shocking and terrifying -- as is Madeleine herself. And suddenly Quentin Fears must prevent his dream woman from unleashing an ageless malevolence intent on ruling the world. Also try Lost Boys and Homebody.

Bad Men  by John Connolly 
On the Maine island once known as Sanctuary, policeman Joe Dupree is the guardian of its secrets, keeper of its memories. He knows that Sanctuary had been steeped in carnage once, centuries ago, when its settlers were betrayed to their enemies and slaughtered. Now, a strange, otherworldly evil is about to descend again....With rookie officer Sharon Macy, Joe stands guard against a bloodthirsty band of men set on murder, robbery, and retribution. Also try The Killing Kind.

The Good House  by Tananarive Due
After her 15-year-old son Corey’s suicide, Angela Toussaint spent several months in a mental hospital. Now divorced and focused on her work, she receives word of potential buyers of her grandmother’s house in Sacajawea, Washington, in which Corey died. Realizing that she must put the tragedy to rest, Angela decides to go to the house to try to understand exactly what happened. Sacajawea is, however, a town beset by evil, in which stomachaches lead to suicide in apparently healthy, well-balanced persons. Also try My Soul to Keep.

Neverwhere  by Neil Gaiman 
Richard Mayhew, a plain man with a good heart. Unhappy in love and in life, Richard is thrust into a dark and evil world when he stops to help a young girl he finds bleeding in the street. Now Richard has much more than work and girlfriend dilemmas on his mind -- now he's wanted by two very evil, powerful, and nasty mercenaries who like to think that they are, in fact, rather gentlemanly.  Also try Gaiman’s Hugo Award Winning novel American Gods.

From the Corner of His Eye  by Dean Koontz
This spellbinder chronicles the lives of three unique individuals. Bartholomew Lampion, born under miraculous yet tragic circumstances, has the most unusual and mesmerizing eyes ever seen. Angel, born in another city at the same time as Bartholomew, is also a miracle child; as she grows, she demonstrates the ability to see the world as it really exists. At the time of their births, ruthless and cunning Junior dreams that someone named Bartholomew will lead to his downfall. While attempting to find the nemesis he knows only by name, Junior is relentlessly pursued by a police detective. The three lives intertwine as this saga barrels along toward their inevitable confrontation. Also try The Taking. 

The Missing by Sarah Langan
Corpus Christi, a remote and affluent Maine community, was untouched by the environmental catastrophe that destroyed the neighboring blue-collar town of Bedford. But all that will change in a heartbeat. The nightmare is awakened when third-grade schoolteacher Lois Larkin takes the children on a field trip to Bedford. There in the abandoned woods, a small, cruel boy unearths an ancient horror—a contagious plague that transforms its victims into something violent, hungry . . . and inhuman.

The Walking by Bentley Little 
The dead are getting restless… Across the country, they have risen. And they seem to have a mission… The walking has begun... No one knows why they are walking. No one knows where they are going. And no one can stop them… They are here. Miles Huerdeen's father dies of a stroke and becomes one of the Walkers, dead humans compelled by some inexplicable homing instinct to travel to a rendezvous in the canyon country of the Southwest. Little evokes an uncanny sense of horror in his macabre tale of ancient evils loose in the modern world. Also try The Store.

Boy’s Life  by Robert McCammon
Zephyr, Alabama, is an idyllic hometown for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson — a place where monsters swim the river deep and friends are forever. Then, one cold spring morning, Cory and his father witness a car plunge into a lake — and a desperate rescue attempt brings his father face-to-face with a terrible vision of death that will haunt him forever. As Cory struggles to understand his father's pain, his eyes are slowly opened to the forces of good and evil that are manifested in Zephyr. McCammon is a multiple Bram Stoker Award winner. Also try Swan Song and Speaks the Nightbird.

Relic  by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
A monster on the loose in New York City's Museum of Natural History provides the hook for this high-concept, high-energy thriller. A statue of the mad god Mbwun, a monstrous mix of man and reptile, was discovered by a Museum expedition to South America in 1987. Now, it is about to become part of the new Superstition Exhibition at the museum. But as the exhibition's opening night approaches, the museum may have to be shut down due to a series of savage murders that seem to be the work of a maniac-or a living version of Mbwun.  Also try Reliquary and the rest of the Pendergast series.

Second Child  by John Saul
Ostracized by her peer group and tormented by her cruel stepsister, Melissa Holloway finds solace in her friendship with the spirit of D'Arcy Malloy, a serving girl who died in her house in Secret Cove, Maine, a century before and whose tragically spurned affections mirror Melissa's own plight. Also try Guardian.

A Winter Haunting  by Dan Simmons 
Returning to the small Illinois town of his childhood to pick up the pieces of his shattered life, and regain his confidence as a writer, Professor Dale Stewart leases an empty farmhouse of a long-dead friend, who had been murdered in the summer of 1960, but instead of finding peace and quiet, he finds that the house is haunted. Simmons is also known for being able to write across genres, often combining elements of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Mystery. Also try Summer of Night or The Terror. 

Mister X  by Peter Straub
Every year on his birthday, Ned Dunstan experiences a seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious and malevolent figure in black whom Ned calls Mr. X. This year Ned learns from his mother, who is on her deathbed, the name of his long-absent father and other disturbing information about his own identity and that of his entire fantastic family. Also try The Hellfire Club.

Midnight Mass  by F. Paul Wilson
In Wilson’s creepy, terrifying thriller, vampires are rapidly taking over the planet. They’ve got Europe, and now they’re encroaching on the East Coast of the U.S. A small group of determined humans embark on a plan of resistance that includes the destruction of the vampire king of New York. The undead might have every advantage, but the likable, compelling mortals in this gripping read aren’t giving up easily. Readers who enjoy fast-paced action thrillers may also like Wilson’s Repairman Jack series, beginning with The Tomb.

Updated by D. Brooks—05/09—Cary Public Library, Wake County Public Libraries—Annotations from Library Catalog, Novelist, and B&N.com